It's a dark night, you can see the red eyes of a spider in the distance. Suddenly you hear the clack of a skeleton. Your heart races; you're out of porkchop and your last sword is broken, you only have 3 health left. You run.

Will you live to see the dawn? Would the situation change for any of the other mobs?

I'm looking for a specific maths-based answer on which of the mobs Steve can outpace in a straight up cat and mouse chase.

So, what you are asking - is there a possibility to survive a night without getting any damage?
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Olegs JeremejevsDec 28 '11 at 22:52

I phrased it for fun more than clarity, my bad. What I want to know is, in a straight up race who will steve outpace? Possibly factoring AI, teleporting, etc. of some mobs.
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PureferretDec 28 '11 at 22:56

1 Answer
1

In a straight line, not in water, you can out run every creature save for an angered enderman simply because its teleportation is sporadic. Where you might get into trouble is when the terrain is not easy navigated and you have to jump and hop. The AI will always do this perfectly, and while it does slow them down a bit its not as much as if you miss your jump and have to do it again as this will often cease your forward motion.

If you are Sprinting (you double tapped) you will very easily outrun everything. Even a teleporting enderman will have a bit of a task to keep up with your movement.

On a difficulty scale for out running creatures it goes

Zombie

Slime (And Nether version)

Creeper

Skeleton and Nether version (Flame guys, embers?)

Spider

Enderman

Ghast

Zombie Pigmen (which are faster than your run)

16 blocks is the active range for AI with two notable exceptions. Zombies and Slimes are all 'touch' based and so the easiest to keep out of range and get beyond that 16 block range unscathed. Creepers are next because of their AOE for exploding gives them a bit of an advantage over the 'touch' range. Skeletons can shoot their arrows pretty far making them a bit more tricky, but honestly if you keep moving they generally keep missing. Spiders might just be my pet peeve against them but they have a ground speed that is higher than most other creatures and are able to scale vertical heights with out as much difficulty as the other mobs (though its still the best way to lose them if you can jump reliably). Endermen are in the annoying category. They have a high range of activity to them due to their ability to teleport. However, constant motion does seem good enough to keep them from doing too much to you. Last are the ghasts simply because of their huge range, around 96 blocks if I recall correctly. They are not limited to path finding and just need a line of sight to constantly launch balls of fire at you.

Anywho, I know this isnt exact numbers for their speed vs your character's speed but this is a very observable measurement with out having to get into the exact numbers in that manner so I figured a through explanation might suffice.

@fredley I made up for the lack of maths with extra words ;)
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JamesDec 28 '11 at 23:44

1

I don't think ghasts belong in the spot as "hardest to escape from". It's usually quite easy to evade them (same principle as the skeletons) or just to put something between you and them.
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John the GreenDec 29 '11 at 4:28